Thread by @gabrielmalor

DOJ has filed a strong rebuttal of the conspiracy theory advanced by plaintiff organizastions and the ACLU and spread by the NYTimes that the census citizenship question was inspired by a secret 2015 study. assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6163…

The lack of any link between the 2015 study and Sec. Ross is damning, but I think the worse thing is that plaintiffs had all this stuff in discovery and only now, with a SCOTUS decision days away, leaping to claim that remand is necessary.

It's bad-faith, dirty lawyering and these plaintiffs should not be rewarded for it.

In light of DOJ's rebuttal, let's look back at that NYTimes article to see if any of its breathtaking claims are true.

First, contrary to ¶2 there is no evidence Hofeller played *any* role in the census citizenship question decision, much less a "crucial" one.

Second, contrary to ¶3, the study was of the effect of using citizen voting age population on redistricting in light of a then-undecided SCOTUS decision. The study wasn't to find a way to disadvantage Democrats.

And third, also contrary to ¶3, Hofeller did NOT draft any portion of the letter DOJ actually sent to Sec. Ross that was the basis of his decision to add the citizenship question.

So the whole premise of the NYTimes piece claiming the census citizenship question was created by "the [GOP] architect of partisan political maps" turns out to have been false.

Dirty lawyering in court and dirty journalism, all in service of swaying a pending SCOTUS decision.

SCOTUS should swat this down hard.